nly
a smattering of people showed up for the Trans Mountain pipeline
expansion project Open House at the Coast Hotel last Thursday. The
light crowd seemed to signify that most of the affected landowners were
already up to speed, which was in contrast to the big turnout at the
first open house last year.

According to Greg Toth, Senior Project Manager Trans Mountain
expansion project, the National Energy Board (NEB) has generated a
short-list of about 900 stakeholders that have successfully applied
as intervenors.

In the next phase, the NEB will be selecting names on the list to appear at the board
hearings TBA. It's expected the NEB will announce the hearing dates
in Vancouver shortly. Throughout May and June, Trans Mountain agents
will be negotiating with landowners.

Toth
spoke with the Voice at the open house.

Has Trans Mountain been dealing with adversity in the community
over the project?

What we've done with the landowners at this point, we've just
applied with them for what's called "Survey Consent". It's really to
get onto their land and do our environmental studies and engineering
studies. Through that process, we receive survey consent. That's
basically our green light to access those properties. We have had
people who have refused.

Along the pipeline route in Alberta and BC, we're running about a 6
per cent refusal rate for our survey consent, so, we think we have a
very high uptake on people who are willing to let us access their
lands. Most of those landowners, 73 per cent of the system follows
the existing pipeline. So, most of those landowners are familiar
with our existing pipeline and our existing operations.

What do you do with the 6 per cent?

We continue to do our studies. Some of the studies are on a desktop
basis, when you're doing all of your environmental assessments on
one property, it's usually similar conditions on the adjacent
property. So we really make some extrapolations on that.

What we do on our application is we submit an environmental
protection plan. It's all the mitigation measures we would employ in
the construction of the pipeline to mitigate the effects.

A
lot of those things that are contemplated, those conditions, or
potential impacts, would be similar on adjacent properties, so we
believe that we'll have the information we'll need to make the
determination really at this point of where the routing of the
pipeline is likely to go.

Is
Burnaby mayor Derrik Corigan correct in saying that your route has
changed since you were there last year with your the open houses?

We received the submissions from Burnaby and we've gone out... and
we're going to do a similar session to what we're doing up the
valley here in Chilliwack and yesterday in Hope. In Burnaby, next
week on Tuesday and Wednesday, really the information that we went
out with at the time when we were doing our routing engagement, back
in the June timeframe and we had those two alternate corridors on
the map at the time when we were soliciting feedback from the people
on those routes.

So the information that was in the application and what we presented
to the public and stakeholders last year is the same information
that we're going out this time as well.

The route I think he (Burnaby mayor) is referring to is; once we get
across the Fraser River we follow a single route along United Blvd.
Then, one of the route-offs is to jog up the Lougheed Hwy and go
down Lougheed Hwy to the Lake City area. The other one is to
continue in the corridor with the rail and Hwy 1 to the Brunette
area and then come up that way.

Who determines what's best for the company and the public?

We receive feedback. We think in order to have the best project
possible, we need that local knowledge. We need the input of a very
many people to hear all the considerations. We have routing criteria
— routing objectives that we're trying to have.

It has to be constructible. We want to minimize impact to the public
and to landowners and when we go through that criteria we try to
make the routing process as objective as possible, even though we
add a degree of subjectivity to it. So though that process, we hope
to land on route that satisfies those conditions.

Are there any changes to the route in Chilliwack?

The two areas of Chilliwack that was of interest. When we filed our
application the route was on the north side of the Highway and
through the Cheam wetlands.

We heard, and we received a lot of feedback on the high values that
are placed on the wetlands and the sensitivity of the wetlands. So,
we basically have come back out to the community and we have a
corridor that will me on the south side of the highway and help us
to avoid the Cheam wetlands.

The other one is, I'm not sure what the area is referred to, I've
heard it as Vedder Crossing, where the existing pipeline goes.
There's been urban growth around where the existing pipeline goes
through with Watson Elementary, a subdivision on each side of it and
we think a better route would be to follow the BC Hydro very large
right-of-way, with multiple high voltage towers through it.

Instead of pipelining through that neighbourhood where we're in
backyards interrupting and disrupting most people's lives is to
follow the BC Hydro right-of-way and minimize that disruption and
impact.

Does it go through a lot of farmland?

Our routing, the existing pipeline, for the most part, other than
those deviations, from basically the Fraser Valley through to
Langley, we follow the existing pipeline with a few minor
deviations. So that pipeline goes through a lot of farmland. A lot
of high value agricultural land.

We're doing workshops with the agricultural community and basically
had some really good sessions and receiving their input on how we
preserve the high values of the agricultural land. So in our
application, so there's a lot of focus on preservation of top soil,
segregation of those top soils, constructing in certain periods of
the year and doing everything we can to mitigate the impacts on
those agricultural lands.

When all is said and done, and you've got the information in from
the residents and stakeholders, and you still have holdouts, what do
you do?

Our plans here are through this additional engagement on the routing
refinement/enhancement, we will file an application and a supplement
to the application which includes the consultation and any kind of
new routing information.

This year, we're starting out the land rights acquisition program,
so we're going to be sending land agents out, so we have that
definition where we know where the pipeline will be going, and we'll
be approaching landowners and we'll basically be presenting them
offers of compensation and damages. It will be a package that will
address the values of the land and impact for disturbances
associated with construction.

So, there's really going to be a lot of those efforts. So there's
still a lot of engagement that has to take place between now and
2016 whenever we start to construct the pipeline.

When will that begin?

We're talking probably in May-June of this year that we'll start
out. We have somewhere in the order of 2200 landowners along the
pipeline, and so we have multiple and agents and we'll start program
when we have some good definition of where the pipeline will be.

So you've got 2200 intervenors?

I
don't think there's any correlation. Obviously some of the
intervenors, and some of the people that have applied, will be
landowners. We know that.

Now what happens with the intervenors?

An application to participate was issued. There were 2130 that
applied, and I think 900 or so are intervenors. If you're going to
apply, you can participate multiple ways. You can intervene and
offer letters of comment.

Do you anticipate any problem getting through this with
landowners?

I
don't know. With the landowners, everybody has their unique
perspectives and what's important to them on their lands. I think
all we can do is approach it from a standpoint of fairness. We want
to be fair and equitable to the landowners and treat them right,
recognize that there is going to be impacts with the pipeline
construction so we really want to be consistent and be fair in our
approach with them.

If you've got 6 per cent who say they don't want this on their
land and refuse right down to the bitter end no matter how much
money is offered to them, what do you do then?

It's not 6 per cent that say they don't want the pipeline. All we
ask for is the rights to go onto their land to do the environmental
and engineering studies and all they've said is no to that.

Saying yes to that isn't consent to construct the pipeline. We're
just trying get their permission to go onto the land. What we have
is 6 per cent of the people who say we're not granting you that
right to go onto our land and do your studies.

The National Energy Board (NEB) has very public processes for
landowners. Landowners are and so in the event of dispute, there are
dispute measures within the NEB.

How many landowners will be affected in Chilliwack?

I
don't know the Chilliwack numbers off hand, but I think In the whole
Lower Mainland there are something like 600 parcels affected.

So it's too early to say that you've got people who won't
cooperate?

I
think it's too early to say. I think we need to physically move
forward with the processes and see where we end up. I think from the
landowner’s perspective, they have a lot of rights that are embedded
in the NEB process